Little blue child

Just the other day, I read this weird article about keeping a notepad by your bedside to list the details of your drems (for what reason, i'm not really sure as the article was left unfinished ;)

Anyway, while I was sleeping on Sunday I had a dream...as normal as it may seem, I have my doubts, because if I take the last 3 dreams I had back to back, and did a summary, I can conclude that all 3 dreams involves ghosts of somekind (1. Bippi and her army of knife throwers, 2. Grandpa (sad to say, he might be a ghost :( ) and 3. This unnamed little child ghost that haunted Sunday's dream)

The little child ghost was blue in colour (no, i have not watched the korean ghost movies with te little blue boy, nor the grudge which featured the little blue boy , and vastu shastra [the hindi version] was on tv so long ago that it does not give me the creeps anymore plus the boy was not blue and did not look the least bit scary). Apparently, in my dream I was a 'ghost buster' like person, and the kid was in my house (does not look like it though)

The only way to get it out of the house is to go near it at around 12 pm, when it turns in it's sleeping position, I'm supposed to do something to it so that it will stop the haunting. Anyway, throughout the dream, I failed many times, as it opens it's eyes, screams so loud that the banshees would run away and tries to kill me instead. Obviously since it's my dream, I don't die...

Finally like after the 100th attempt or so, I finally get to do what I should do to stop the haunting, the child turns to normal skin colour and sleeps... and I awake.

I wonder if this means I should get back to writing scary stories...

The rain - a poem

Do you like the rain
Drops of water fall into the drain
When it drizzles,
When it drizzles.

Clouds darken in the sky
Lightning flashes eerily
Buckets of rain come pouring,
And icy cold wind it brings

Day looks like night
Cats get into a fight
The raindrops keep falling
And the frogs go on croaking!

Drains get flooded
People walking, hooded
Rain falling like sheets of glass
On window sills made of brass

The rain slows down a bit
Lightning, nothing was hit
The sun peeks from behind
Oh, how kind!

A rainbow seen against the sky
The winds no more icy
The rain has stopped for a while
People begin to smile.

I've seen better days

I received this email yesterday. *Actual details have been masked to protect identities and to avoid lawsuits. however, (and thankfully) I only read it circa 2:00 pm, and was spared 1 whole day of discontentment. Instead I was discontented for what most people would regard as 1/2 of a working day.

Dear All,
We encountered colour problem on recent pilot batch of (insert code). From the cast down,the colour is in different tone as compared to lab standard, obviously it was due to problem in (insert process name) process. Colour is contaminated with some black (insert name). Therefore, can I demand an urgent meetingto settle the problem due to the urgency in delivery.

date: 14/6/2006 (today)

time: 9.30am

venue: (mentioned but shall not be revealed)

Your attendance is highly appreciated. Thank you.

Despite being discontented, I had to laugh in spite of myself after reading the mail... (much later, that is)

So, here's an open letter to the sender of the email

Damn you, woman! Where do you get off in stating 'obviously blah blah blah...' and shift the blame off yourself in something which you have minimum expertise on, on something that you've never been directly involved with? Haven't you heard of this thing called diplomacy? Or better still, don't you know how to compose a proffesional e-mail?

Just because your attempt in the lab was successful, it does not necessarily apply to all the other departments. if you had done proper research, or asked around for that matter, you would have learnt that all the differences that exist between so called "ideal condition labscale' and 'not so ideal mass pro' are for real and did not pop out of some disillusioned (insert dept name) person's head. It would have spared you embarrassment in the future as you had beautifully C.C'ed this fantastic rigmarole of yours to people you shouldn't have so early on in 'problem'.

By the way, pilot batch can be also considered to be a trial batch, so kindly go back and check the dictionary for the meaning of trial will ya?

At least i'm writing this reply in my blog, which has saved me from being a bitter person. Besides, a short report, (after doing some research, mind you) will be proof that the dept you so biasedly blamed is not in fault for the entire problem. There you go!

Anyway, this song was playing in my head for sometime... I should have heeded the warning signs, but what can I do? I despise having to label days... I suppose it all started with when I saw a fellow colleague carrying his walkie talkie from the car to the office (which means he brought it home... for what? Add in a loud guffaw here)

REM - bad day

A public service announcement

followed me home the other day

I bade it nevermind, go away.

The shit's so thick, you could stir
it with a stick

the paper wouldn't lie,

we assume the loss to mankind and
gloat and jeer with it

Broadcast me a joyful noise into the times,

Lordcount your blessings, ignore the
lowest fearwell you can't sandblast glisten
Radio no, play the game, three
words, first one shortmagazine, book, cinema, N - O -
down,many fears are gone, step down, step
downwatch a heel crush,

ah this means war

I saw the light, it can't be right
Broadcast me a joyful noise into the times,

Lordcount your blessings, ignore the
lowest fearwell you can't sandblast

It's been a bad day, please don't
take my picture

It's been a bad day, please

It's been a bad day, please don't
take my picture

It's been a bad day, please

A public service announcement

followed me home the other day

I bade it nevermind

The shit's so thick, you could stir
it with a stick

the paper wouldn't lie

we assume the loss to mankind and
gloat and jeer with it

Broadcast me a joyful noise into the
times, Lordcount your blessings, ignore the
lowest fearcome one, what more?

It's been a bad day, please don't
take my picture

It's been a bad day, please

It's been a bad day, please don't
take my picture

It's been a bad day, please

Thanks to musicfactory

Besides the meeting held in the morning (e-mail sent at 8:30 am for 9:30 meeting). In the evening, I got stuck in the same vicinity as you know who. Lots of teribble things happened. Exhausted, hungry (only a cup of nescafe and a pathetic bun the whole day), sleepy, annoyed (if i go on I can have a whole new set of the seven dwarves).

Yes... it was a bad day.

Bali- the continuation

A short hiatus on the Bali trip. I figured that if i wrote about everything nearest after the trip, then I'd end up losing the fun I had as quickly as the four days that whizzed by. But then again, too long a break might result in the 3rd and 4th day not being documented, and knowing me that is quite likely to happen, so here I am...

DINNER & DANCE (not necessarily in that order)

After a long and arduous journey by a sailboat across the ocean, our journey back was much better thanks to the crew who managed to get us a quicker, painless ride back to firm solid ground. It was so comfortable that some of us managed to sneak in a nap in that time frame.

Back on land, we were met by our guide to get to the Uluwatu temple to watch the famous Kecak dance performed in the sunset... (cloudy skies denied us this). Our guide had a long umbrella, (to be used as a weapon!) and requested us to remove earrings, glasses, scrunchies, bracelets, as well as anything shiny and removable... for there were monkeys there, many of them, who were interested in human stuff, plus they also knew the'value' of the stuff, practiced the barter system (after grabbing it from you) and a pathetic banana would not be sufficient to get back your glasses if the monkey took them away from you.

So there we were, 3 short sighted, tired people, trudging across the grounds, not being able to enjoy the scenery for once... Lucky for us (is there such a thing as luck?) the dance area had no real monkeys, just humans dressed up as 'em. The dance was unique... you couldn't feel the whole hour passing... it was as though it was just a few minutes. A piece of fiery material went flying at some point and almost hit one of the kiasu tourists who had ventured too close.

Later on it was dinner at Jimbaran. Seafood! Though not too much of a fan of our sea friends, (speaking only for myself, here) it was a thoroughly enjoyable meal. Had another one of my 'firsts' here. The sound of the ocean and waves crashing on the beach brought me back to the time when I was a kid in PD. Then there were this bunch of guys, going around singing stuff at the tables... songs that were most probably famous when our parents were in their early or late twenties. Yikes!

This was our final night for the trip. Packed that night, and slept off, half anticipating, half regretting the next day.

Looking for trouble: a new language

It was a pledge by 20 odd students. No skipping classes, no dropping the subject. Full commitment required. Not too bad a deal if you look at it logically... But all logic begins to crumble to dust.

There was a unanimous decision to get rid of the self absorbed, arrogant snob whom they had not much of a choice but to face for four hours weekly. Get themselves called stupid, and having to listen to how great he is at golf, or how his students at a local university score the best scores in the external exams. Have him stand by their sides during tests, reading their answers as they write, and giving sudden announcements as to answer so and so of person so and so is wrong... please correct it, followed by an elaborate attempt to help the poor unfortunate soul who had most probably lost everything they had crammed into their heads the previous day.

There were promises that things were bound to be better. So, armed with thoughts that the silver lining from the dark and stormy clouds were getting brighter and stronger they preservered and pledged allegience to the 3 requests.

Alas, things were not as rosy as they imagined. Learning a new language even with a teacher whom everyone liked and who could really teach was a painful process, and for reasons that cannot be comprehended, the class was running at breakneck speed.. no, make that supersonic speed. The lost ones, got even more lost, minds numb from differentiating adjectives, verbs, and tenses. The better ones, hung on, albeit getting worried that they would soon be in grave danger of not understanding anything that is going on.

But they stayed on, regardles... the reason?
This was said in BM so that the teacher would not understand it (she's foreign, by the way)... "Kalau cikgunya tak cun, mesti dah lama berhenti"

The whole class laughed at this statement... and the poor teacher laughed too, not realising that she was part of the joke.

Pictorial Dillema

Allow me to share this story…

Once upon a time, there was this girl who had an extremely limited number of digitali photographs… take one hand and count the fingers on it… the number of photos she had was approximately that…

Anyway, this same girl also had a friendster account and she put up some of the photos there, one of it though always remained there…. Until February of this year that is.

Unlike kids still at school, this girl did not have much opportunity to go around exploring the features of friendster which kind of happened to increase with each passing month. Busy working... ahem. One of these features, known as photo grabbing caused her immense trauma.

This is what happened: It was another normal day in February, and she was checking her mail in friendster in the comfort of her home… when she noticed that she had received a “smile’ from someone. As she proceeded to check it out, she noticed that the person who sent her the smile apparently shared the name of someone she knew… in the ever expanding world of friendster, she duly assumed that it was her friend who sent her the smile. As she was looking through the person’s profile, looking for evidence that she knew the person, she stopped at something that looked pretty familiar… looking closely, she noticed that this person (who by the way was not who she thought it was) had ‘grabbed’ her photo and (horror of horrors!) had put it in his profile! Why? Why? Why?

Horrified, panicked and angry and experiencing a whole array of other emotions and instead of ‘reporting the user’, she had deleted her precious few photos and closed her profile to the public. It took her approximately a month to overcome the trauma, and after disabling the photo grabbing feature, she felt that it was time to allow photos to be put up again, (she cannot bear the grey figure!) and open her profile once again....

The thing with Insomnia is....

You try to get some sleep, because you need to. And there's something telling you that it's time to sleep. You end up sleeping effortlessly when you're reading on the floor, or watching tv, but as soon as you decide to go to the one place where you're supposed to sleep, your eyes are wide open and all the sleepiness has disappeared.

You hang on, turning to find the most comfortable position (eyes still wide open) and then you think: "I must sleep, please... I've got a long day ahead tomorrow." Then you close your eyes, beckoning the sleepy feeling. Not a moment too soon, your head fills up with ideas for a new story, or something that at the back of your mind you knew should have been done a long time ago (but since it was at the back of your mind you never gave it much priority, until this moment when you're trying to sleep).

Then since your brain is already active, it keeps thinking about more and more stuff, like who should have won in the previous episode of the amazing race, or worse, whom would you choose to be your teammate(s) if you were to take part (yeah, right). Or, you would end up thinking of a song and it would keep playing in your head and not let you sleep.

Somehow, sooner or later you do end up sleeping, but then your hand is placed at an uncomfortable position under you, so the body decides to fight back, and you end up dreaming that your hand is getting hurt through a series of events including being mercilessly pulled away from you. Of course you get up in horror, with your hand really hurting because of the position it was in, and it's all in pins and needles.

You're a bit dazed, and then you check the clock... it's about half an hour before you have to wake up (sigh). So you just laze around hoping that the alarm never rings. Inevitably it does.

originally posted on October 14:

X- (WO) MEN and the flu battle

Excuse the title, but the feminist part of me seems to have taken over... Just a phase, I hope. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that there are women in the mutant colony too, and therefore the title is applicable in this space and time. (Enough of justifications, already!!!)

I don't know if it is a strange coincidence or merely my humble observations, but it has been a pattern these past two years where all the nice movies (which I want to watch, anyway) are shown in November/December and May/April. This has caused several problems which I do not wish to delve into except for that the last movie I watched was around six months ago! However, one thing that happened this time around is I missed one movie for good, another is dangling by a thin thread before it's booted out of the nearest cinema, and the third, I happily (albeit desperately) watched yesterday.

Excellent movie! Every minute could keep you open mouthed in anticipation for the next thing, and everything was placed so well, that the continuity of the story was as smooth as a placid river running it's course on a lowland without any obstruction on it's way. (this also most probably had got to do with the scissors that weren't carelessly used to snip parts of the movie that you could expect the usually incompetent censorship board to blatantly cut off. For this, I thank you, censorship board... you made my day).

The characters were all cool and although I have never read the comics before, I felt as though I knew them for ages. The effects and the fight scenes were fabulous... Well, everything was just great, and I enjoyed every bit of it. Excellent!!! (Said in the Bill and Ted style)
To think that the flu that creeped in on me cruelly on Saturday morning sort of disappeared during the course of the movie is just wonderful, though now (Sunday night - back to work tomorrow (groan!)) I feel it creeping back.

Well, now I can't wait for the spin-off's I heard that are in the making!

Flu

Oh no! I feel the flu coming. It was circling the sky menacingly for a couple of weeks attacking
the others. People were coughing everywhere, avoiding iced drinks like the plague. Maybe….

Whereas, I was a happy kid, skipping along the corridors, avoiding iced drinks also, but not as if it was the plague. More out of habit, and the particularly chilly weather at that time.

Looking out of the window, I see the sun blazing, concentrating the last 2 hours of it's energy
on the earth (among other places). For today at least…

Now when everyone's feeling better, the flu decided that it is ready for a brand new attack.

This has to stop, please.